ARTICLES ABOUT ASSET MANAGEMENT BY DATE - PAGE 5

MUMBAI: Top three positions continue to be captured by the same three fund houses namely HDFC, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company and Franklin Templeton during the past three years, according to the third Annual Wealth Forum Advisor Confidence Survey report. Independent financial advisors from 42 cities participated in this survey conducted last month and shared their insights on a wide range of business, market, products and asset management company partner confidence parameters.

MUMBAI: The world-beating 23 per cent rally in Indian equities this year may have outpaced the outlook for corporate earnings, according to Aberdeen Asset Management . "We are in the more sceptical camp," Hugh Young, a Singapore-based managing director at Aberdeen, which oversees about $537 billion, said. "Things are too optimistic at the moment and prices are slightly ahead of fundamentals. " Global investors have bought $25.5 billion of domestic shares and bonds this year even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has yet to deliver on his election pledges to revive economic growth and make India an easier place to do business after a landslide victory in May. Opposition lawmakers scuppered Modi's attempt to revive a bill raising foreign ownership in insurance companies, dealing a blow to his efforts to further open Asia's third-largest economy.

MUMBAI: Deutsche Asset Management India launched an arbitrage fund today, in the open-ended equity scheme portfolio. "The DWS Arbitrage Fund is an ideal investment solution for investors, seeking returns through arbitrage opportunities that exist in the equity and derivatives markets," Deutsche AMC India head Suresh Soni said. The new fund opens from August 13 would invest in arbitrage opportunities that may exist in the equity and derivatives markets. The fund expects to predominantly invest in the cash futures arbitrage strategy, that is, buying a stock in the cash market and selling it in the futures market, resulting in a hedge, where the fund portfolio is locked in a spread and is not affected by price movements in the spot market and futures markets, a company release said.

NEW DELHI: Reliance Capital Asset Management (RCAM) today said it has launched its first Alternate Investment Fund (AIF) and is targeting to raise over Rs 5,000 crore through the fund in the next three years. The real estate-based fund is being launched through RCAMs subsidiary, Reliance AIF Management Company Ltd. "RYMAIF (Reliance Yield Maximiser Alternative Investment Fund - Scheme I) seeks to invest in a portfolio of relatively high yielding securities, issued by companies participating predominantly in the residential real estate sector," RCAM said in a statement today.

ET Now caught up with David Gaud, Senior Portfolio Manager, Asia ex-Japan Equity, Edmond De Rothschild Asset Management, for his views on the FOMC meet and the global markets. Excerpts: ET Now: What do you think is going to transpire at the FOMC meet? David Gaud: First off all, we think that the markets are waiting for the Fed announcement tonight. We as a firm do not expect much of a change in their stance for the next month or a month-and-a-half. We think that the Fed needs to gather more data on the US economy.

The National Pension System (NPS) needs intelligent government support . The state must support fund management costs and record-keeping costs till the corpus becomes large enough to generate economies of scale. The NPS is a defined contribution scheme open , initially, to employees joining government service from January 1, 2004, and later to voluntary subscribers. Two of the 10 firms in the race to manage voluntary contributions to the NPS have reportedly dropped out, judging the fee to be too low to meet costs.

NEW DELHI: As many as 33 mutual fund houses were found to have violated '20-25 rule' which requires a minimum of 20 investors and a cap of 25 per cent investment by an individual investor in a particular scheme, Parliament was informed today. Large-scale violations in several schemes of such fund houses were found by capital markets regulator Sebi. "Letters were issued to 33 mutual funds, wherein individual unit holders were observed holding more than 25 per cent of the scheme's quarterly average net assets," Minister of State for Finance Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha . She advised them to comply with 20-25 norms in "letter as well as in spirit".

MUMBAI: Reliance Capital, along with the promoters of Prime Focus, is investing Rs 240 crore in listed Prime Focus, the company announced on Wednesday. Reliance Capital, through its media and entertainment business Reliance Media Works, will end up owning around 30% in Prime Focus, post the transaction. "Reliance Media Works and the promoters of Prime Focus, Naresh and Namit Malhotra, will each infuse fresh equity capital of Rs 120 crore into Prime Focus at Rs 52 per share, through a preferential allotment , aggregating Rs 240 crore," said a joint release from both the companies.

The recent rally in emerging markets on the back of political changes has again drawn the attention of global asset managers . They're returning after having pulled out nearly $31 billion from emerging markets last year on account of valuation comfort and fading political risk . Even after a three-month rise, valuations remain near the lowest compared with developed countries since 2006. The benchmark index for emerging markets, the MSCI EM, is trading at a P/E of 11 times on a one-year forward basis compared with 15.1 times for the MSCI World index.

MUMBAI: With the Sensex trading at record levels, domestic fund managers are busy finding small-cap ideas that can give them handsome returns in the near term. During the past one month, leading fund houses, including HDFC, ICICI, DSP Blackrock and Reliance, have bought huge chunks of shares in a number of small companies. When the economy expands, small-cap stocks gain the most, but when the market slides, they are the worst sufferers. This is why small caps never constituted the core of mutual fund holdings, say experts.